Urrutia del Campo treats public-space comfort as a field of options rather than a single environmental optimum. Studying Plaza del Dos de Mayo, Plaza de Vázquez de Mella and Plaza de Chamberí during spring 2010, the article relates physical, functional and microclimatic conditions to actual patterns of occupation. Its strongest proposition is that the most used plazas are not necessarily those that stabilise one ideal climate, but those that provide a greater mixture of possibilities: sun and shade, different spatial positions, varied activities and differentiated environmental conditions from which users can choose. This makes diversity operational at the scale of the square. The study combines climatic characterisation with behavioural observation and thereby resists both purely formal design assessment and abstract comfort indices. Its broader significance lies in connecting microclimate, public-life observation and democratic urbanism: habitability emerges from the capacity of space to sustain multiple situated choices rather than from universalising one definition of comfort.
URBANISM MEETS ART